Rams fan bus follows team back west to LA; family plans to tailgate in style at games

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Grant Mogford of Rolling Hills Estates bought an old 1980’s Rams fan bus from a disgruntled St. Louis Rams fan and will drive it to the team’s first preseaseon game back in Los Angeles on Saturday at the Coliseum for a tailgating party. He also has season tickets. Aug. 12, 2016. (Brad Graverson / Staff Photographer)

It was a 1980s school bus repurposed into a rolling, blue-and-gold declaration of devotion to the St. Louis Rams, complete with hand-painted logos, 10 years worth of season parking permits tacked above the steering wheel and more than a dozen season schedules plastered above the inner windshield.

After the family bought season tickets for the Rams’ return to Los Angeles, Ellyn was looking for tailgating gear to give to her husband, Grant, shortly before Father’s Day. When she found the ad from a “disgruntled” St. Louis fan who wanted to unload the bus, she showed it to Grant as a passing oddity.

“Of course, I didn’t really think he was going to get it,” she said.

Regardless of what she thought at the time, Grant contacted the original owner via Craigslist and they heard back from the St. Louis fan a week later. A few weeks after that, the bus was on a flatbed truck following the Rams to Los Angeles.

The bus was converted by the original owner, an engineer who added seating booths and tables, a full bathroom and an area to store a barbecue inside the 35-foot-long vehicle. On the outside, the Rams’ team name and logo are emblazoned along either side of the bus, although the Mogfords have had the words “St. Louis” artfully slashed out, with “Los Angeles” painted above.

Above the back door is a small mural of the Gateway Arch over the St. Louis skyline, which Grant said he plans to have swapped out for the L.A. skyline beneath palm trees.

The Rolling Hills Estates family expected that the bus would attract attention outside the stadium during tailgating parties. But the reactions while Grant drives the bus down the street were a surprise, they said.

During the first day driving it, Grant was flagged down by a man who thought the 1980s Ford bus was the official team vehicle.

“I thought something fell off (the bus) or something, and (he said) ‘Do you have any footballs or any giveaways?’ ” said Grant, who keeps the bus at a business in Gardena.

One time, an SUV pulled alongside the bus and five passengers rolled down their windows to take pictures, cheering while they did. With their phones hanging out the windows to snap photos, it was clear why they were so excited — they all had Rams phone cases, said Alex Mogford, Grant and Ellyn’s daughter.

“It’s pretty incredible to see people’s reactions. Either they pay no mind or people (have) their jaws on the floor,” said Alex, who runs the Facebook and Instagram pages dedicated to the bus.

Driving the fan bus isn’t an issue for Grant, who used to drive a cement truck and worked as a bus driver for a rafting company before that.

“It’s considerably lighter than a cement truck,” he said.

Grant said he hasn’t been a Rams fan, or watched much of the NFL, since the team left Los Angeles in 1994. The Mogfords are avid fans of Los Angeles sports teams though, they said. They support the Dodgers and Lakers, and they’ll be glad to welcome a professional football team back to the city.

Cynthia Washicko started covering the Palos Verdes Peninsula for the Daily Breeze in 2016. Before joining the Breeze she covered business and local news for papers on the Oregon and Washington coasts. She’s an Orange County native and Cal State Fullerton alum who enjoys traveling and has a particular knack for killing house plants. Restaurant recommendations and story tips are perpetually welcome.